


Vis-à-vis

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [22]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: actually not taako tuesday shit for once, adding tags as needed, fuck it, headcanons ahoy, my life is a lie, oh and yeah this shit is personal thoughts expressed in fanfiction, the summary is a joke, the title is a pun, too many characters to name so, you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:26:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: Only 90's kids will remember.





	1. Unmellow Yellow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a place for me to dump my own personal internal dialogue and issues on my favorite characters. All of this is kinda my headcanon now so fuck that...yeah. None of it is canon. I play loosey-goosey with fucking timelines and canon and even my own fanon shit. Sorry guys.
> 
> (Not really. Life is a fleeting, fate is fickle, and I am both cosmically insignificant and cosmically significant at once. No time for consistency.)
> 
> I will update as I please. I will write what I please. As shitty as this might sound, I am writing this for me and me alone. You do not control this. You cannot suggest anything for this. These are my feelings and I refuse to change them for you. You are just a bystander here.
> 
> That is all I will say on the matter.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this and I am sorry if you empathize with me because these are not nice feelings.

90% of Magnus's brain was static. His thoughts buzzed around in his skull like butterflies and bees and wasps and hornets. Loud noise and no purpose to be found. Words. Numbers. Phrases. Verses of songs.

Sometimes they were benign, little words over and over and over again until he couldn't hear anything else. Phrases. Questions. Practicing what he would say hours before he needed to say it.

"Passing. Passing. Passing. Look good. Passing. Passing. Passing. Passing." "Hello. Hello! Hi. Hello. Hi!!! Hello. Good day. It's a good day. Hello!!!" "Shit did I forget the laundry? No I did that. But I forgot something. Something important. The laundry? No I did that." "Remember this number: locker 11083. 11083. One. One. Oh. Eight. Three. Locker number 11083. Can't forget. 11083."

(Endless. Repetitive. Nonsensical.)

Other times they were harsher, white noise and broadcast bars and the Amber Alert tone that screamed and echoed in his ears even though it wasn't even fucking real!!! Klaxons, klaxons, klaxons, like a never-ending siren in his head. The sound of rubble falling and the knowledge that beneath it is the body of everyone he loves.

"Hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate" "It's all my fault. It's all my fault. Everything is my fault. I should have taken the Chalice. I could have saved her. I could have saved everyone." "Who am I? That can't be me? Am I not the me that I was when that plan was made?! Then who am I?" "Am I doing the right thing? Who should I trust? I miss her so much. I miss her so much. I miss her so much. I think I'm forgetting her face."

(Pain and torment. Loud. Ceaseless. A typhoon of emotion and noise-that-was-not-noise. The feeling of no in sound form, wordless and screaming. Pain. Guilt. He didn't even know emotions could _have_ sounds.)

Never a moment of quiet. Conscious? Fucking noise in his head. Sleeping? Active dreamer. (Nightmares.) Unconscious? Fuck knows. Mostly memories and revisiting his last conscious moments. His brain was a goddamn beehive of thought and sound and work.

Sometimes he just fucking wanted it to shut the hell up. Smoke them out so that he could enjoy blissful silence, like a pillow and a warm bed, untouched for decades.

(Sometimes he wanted to shut it the hell up.)


	2. Nude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Killian, be'SoS, sapphic orc with hur'q blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: dysphoria and self-harm (ish)

Killian had complicated and mixed feelings about gender and sex and fucking secondary sexual characteristics and so on. Namely: she fucking hated the goddamn lot of it. If she had her way, Common would work like Orc: no gendered words, no gender, no pronouns past 'you' and 'me'. Direct and to the point.

Male, female, _whatever_...who the fuck cared?! Certainly not Killian.

(Everyone else, on the other hand, seemed to fucking _thrive_ on the sheer vapors of the idea that there was some sort of gender slider thing going on in all races and they had to pin it just right because "how else will I know if I'm addressing a Viscount or a Viscountess?" Like just asking wasn't a fucking option. _Shit._ )

Still, she had issues with body image in regards to gender characteristics. As an orc, she was tall and broad. She wasn't full-blooded (no quote-unquote "civilized" orc was, due to some nasty fucking history with slavery and it's-totally-not-BDSM-you-have-a-control-issue-and-a-fucking-fetish-you-pretentious-slave-owning-fuck) but had enough orc in her to drown out the more obvious _hur'q_ traits that would prevent her from pulling heritage claim and contesting for her birthright. The only _hur'q_ traits that really stood out were her feathery hair—orcs tended to have more of a stiff, wiry hair that acted more like wool than anything else—and her large chest.

The physical difference between orc childbearers ( _SoS_ ) and orc sires ( _vav_ ) were few and far between. Both sexes could grow facial hair, were usually very well-built, had tusks, and had very dark hair—though some clans of orc tended to dye their hair to differentiate between clans because, ya know, fucking classism or raceism or someshit. The only really big notes for classifying someone as a _SoS, vav,_ or _latlh_ (neither _SoS_ nor _vav_ ) was in the downstairs department. _SoS_ had a vagina, _vav_ had a penis and external testicles, and _latlh_ usually had both but it was on a by-case basis for the most time.

When it came to gender, orcs had a three-point system that suffixed sex to gender. Ladies were _joH_ , men were _jaw_ , and those who didn't fit either were _be'_. One's gender was suffixed by their sex. So what a human would call a cisgender female would be a _joHSoS_. A genderfluid male would be a _be'vav_. And so on.

Killian was _SoS_ but she didn't feel like _joHSoS_. She also didn't feel _jawSoS_. Maybe _be'SoS_ , but that was really a moot point. Labels were fucking weird anyways. At least she and Taako could agree there.

So she was probably _be'SoS_ , which was okay. Still sapphic because she didn't care too much about pronouns—which were useless in her opinion—and "she" was easiest, and Carey was fucking adorable. But like, body????

Okay, break it down. _SoS_ thing? Not an issue. Water under the bridge. Burying the hatchet. Whoops. There it goes, six feet under. _Requiat en Pacem_ , dear hatchet of the rigged sexual lottery. _Be'_ thing? Also not big deal. Carey knew and she didn't give a shit.

("Kill; you're still you, no matter what kind of gender shit you got going on. Just 'cause you may not be female, doesn't make us any less in love. Plus there's whole clans of brass and olive dragonborn that are literally clones of one another because all of them are egg-makers. Gender ain't shit _dii jud_!")

But like...sometimes there was this...feeling. Discomfort. _Confusion?_ Like there was something _off_ and she couldn't place it. It wasn't a vagina thing cause she was pretty ambivalent about having one. Sure, bleeding monthly fucking _sucked_ but you got used to that shit by the time you were Killian's age. Plus, at least the moon base had some good, good hygiene products, more fantasy Midol than she could ever hope to need, and pound upon pound of the dopest goddamn chocolate. Real artesian shit. Fucking, like, 50+ gold chocolate (price per bar).

No, it was more of a... _top thing._

Again, her _hur'q_ blood left her rather big in the titty department. Carey found them endearing because dragonborn don't have tits per-se—draconic blood tends to drown the mammalian traits right out—and they pretty much acted like fucking hot pads stuffed into pillows for the moon's coldest goddamn skink ever. (Seriously. Carey had hands that were like fucking goddamn fifteen to twenty degrees colder than the rest of the moon. The scales did not help the situation.) Killian though? The inability to see her feet, the feeling of the weight of them moving when she did, the severe lack of good bras for boobs as big as hers (that didn't have boning in them that tore up her armpits or caused tit spillage or dug into her shoulders or crushed her ribs), and the way that they always hit every goddamn thing in the front general direction of her.

Also being shirtless was a no-go in _hur'q_ society if you had tits??? Who the fuck knows why. (Certainly not Killian.)

But it wasn't _just_ that. If it had been that, she might have just gotten one of Neverwinter's amazing and lauded compression binders and moved the fuck on (provided that they made them in size orc). It was that, sometimes, she didn't fucking care about them. They just were there. Until she got hit in the goddamn chin by them during training or trying a sweet flip, she usually forgot about them. Except when that discomfort-but-also-disgust-layered-with-a-thin-veneer-of-self-loathing hit hard and she would scratch her chest because she couldn't stand it.

(Carey was a sweetheart though, her _nIHwI'_ , and clipped her nails and painted them with the same color as her cobalt scales so that she wouldn't hurt herself and so that she had something pretty to look at.)

So Killian was she, _be'SoS_ , fine with a vagina but not tits, a sapphic orc with _hur'q_ heritage, who lived on the moon.

(And the small, pale scars on her collarbone and ribs were not made out of love, but the tattoos that accompanied them were.)


	3. Wisteria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A comprehensive list of sounds that make Angus McDonald uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I said that these are based on my feelings and experiences. I need to preface this chapter with this: this is the one that deviates the farthest from my own fears and life. I have not been sexually assaulted, nor have I been traumatized as much as poor Angus here (sorry baby).
> 
> That being said: warnings for implied sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and trans Ango. If you're wondering what his deadname is, check out my Taako Tuesday fic "Asphodel", which will reveal it soon.
> 
> (I think I may have mentioned it during The Greatest Mystery but idk...)

A comprehensive list of sounds that make Angus McDonald uncomfortable:

The ringing of keys against one another, slapping into a pantsed leg. Hundreds of keys, ornate or plain, gold, copper, tungsten, tin, orichalcum, they rang together like a wind chime of doom. It meant authority. It meant pain. It meant hiding and holding his breath while the keys pass him to open another door and then slam it shut, swearing at the occupants.

Soft footsteps on stairs or wooden floors. Hushed tones following. That name being said, over and over again. "Sweet girl. My darling girl. So beautiful. I love you." Hands run through his hair, long then, shorter now. Hands running across his face. Hands touching him gently and he wants to cry but he can't because the keys will hear and the steps will lie and he will be punished again. Soft steps means drunk and soft steps also means that the keys are here. They only came when the keys were here and they only left when they were shuddering with pleasure and release. And they left him feeling dirty and pained. And he hated that sound.

His name. Her name. That name. Spoken softly. Spoken in anger. Spoken sternly. He hated it. He wanted to hurl every time he heard it. Even when it wasn't meant towards him, he hated it. He hated it so much.

The loud crack of doors slamming, of canes smacking against doors and bones, of crossbows misfired, and of heads hitting walls. Sharp noises that echo and ring in his ears. The small snapping sound of Tap being cast pales in comparison but he still jumps. Conditioned, he stands straight up, poised, feet at position three, hands folded, faint smile, lidded eyes, and pretends like everything is fine. People stare but when he relaxes, no one asks. He likes that about the moon. No one asks questions about weird habits.

The phrase "I love you". Lauded over him, dangled like a carrot. (Not any more but he remembers and it hurts.) Conditional, yes; twisted, definitely. Even if only in familial ways, the word draws an animalistic whine from deep within him. He keens, but only in private, because "I love you" means they need something and "I love you" means they'll use him. The Reclaimers never say that to him—though he accidentally says it to them out of habit—and he is relieved. The gentle ribs and harsh jokes are more loved that those three words that set his teeth on edge.

(And though he's learning, and though he's growing, those sounds still haunt him. Especially her name. He doubts he'll ever grow out of that.)


	4. Violet-Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a void deep in Johan's chest and he smothered it with music. It was a temporary fix at best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: depression and executive dysfunction mentions.

No matter how loud Johan played, it couldn't drown out the sadness that gripped his chest and strangled his words. Speaking was hard, especially when emotions came into play, but music has always been the easiest way to express himself; both playing and composition. It didn't fill the void in him anyway.

(Too emotional, he was told, and too easy to cry. Grow up! Get out! Live your life! Make it yours!)

He was afraid. He was afraid of being alone, both in a house that would be wholly his responsibility, and in general. He was afraid of opening his mouth and saying the wrong thing and everyone being angry at him. Or laughing at him. He was afraid of being forgotten but he couldn't do shit about that now. What's done is done after all.

He didn't know how to function. Doing things was hard. Everything was too big and too much at once. Washing dishes? Laundry? Shower? Eating? Even though they're simple tasks—and he would berate himself for being unable to accomplish them—they were far too daunting. And so he rotted and wasted away.

(Grow up. Be an adult. Stop crying. Make friends. Make something of yourself. Get a job.)

In a world where your societal value was directly linked to your income, he was low and lowly. Pennies, not even gold, lined his pockets and, when he could afford food, he cried. He was proof that Vimes' Boots was true. What he spent in a week would have fed a better off family for months.

And his head screamed, incessant noise and sadness like fog, clouding his thoughts and warping his refracted perception. Noise. Pain. Sorrow. Only music drowned it out.

(Too much. It was too much. It was so hard.)

So he played. He busked on corners of cobblestone streets and in taverns and on the strip. He earned less but drowned out his demons. His pain was quiet. The void was filled.

(And then the Voidfish and his purpose and he had a home and an income but it wasn't enough because it would never be enough. He would never be enough. And the void grew and he couldn't drown it out any more.)

As he sawed at the strings of his violin, the Voidfish humming gently in the background, he felt empty. And no amount of music would ever fix it.

A patch is a temporary fix after all.

(Stop crying.)


	5. Puce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every part of him haunts him. He wants to scrub it away but he's afraid it's all that defines him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tenses are a little fucky but idgaf.
> 
> Okay so, after quite some time of emotional stability, here I am again!!! TL;DR dropped a toxic friend of 14 years for emotional abuse as well as just generally making me so anxious I had trouble functioning socially online. Hindsight is 20/20 but when your head's up your own ass, it's hard to tell what's what.
> 
> I don't really need pity or anything, cause that just kinda prods the wound, but just know I'm better off without her. Fuck her. I can finally breathe.
> 
> Also: I'd like to point out that I struggle with imposter syndrome due to what she did compounded on my already shitty memory and (at the time undiagnosed) ADHD. So if I ever seek validation or ask if I'm a good writer or w/e pls know that I'm just real low and need a boost. I'd prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth then.
> 
> Also also: if you fucking tear people down verbally and then get snippy when they get upset, insisting that you're 'not sugar-coating it', you're a fuck and I hate you.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. "You should've known better," they say, "you should've seen the signs!" When you are starved for affection, the red flags are just for celebration.

(And never say that he was a forgiving dude, because he wasn't, but the multiple fuckups were brushed away because here was someone close who would hold him and be with him and understand him. It filled a void in him he couldn't name.)

(But that understanding was a hidden dagger, slipped up his sleeve, and coated in arsenic.)

Sazed. The name brings the taste of almonds and garlic to his mouth and the smell of sandalwood and myrrh to his nose and the color of blood and bile to everything. It taints his dreams and echoes flatly inside his head with every shitty thing he ever said to him.

(And every nice thing too. He forgot that sometimes. It fucking sucks when he remembers.)

And what was worse is that he still missed him. Toxic and poisonous as Sazed was, he longed to see him again, because some small part of him still believed that Sazed loved him. That he was sincere.

(He's wrong, everyone says, but fuck them! Taako's opinion is what matters. Taako is the one who matters.)

So he lays awake at night, reviewing his mistake and his solution, trying to figure out if he did right. He toys with the idea of calling him up again—he has his Stone frequency, after all—but he tosses it away quickly. Too much pain. Too much emotion. Too raw. And he wasn't good with feelings anyway.

(And late at night he wondered if what Sazed said was true.)

**Author's Note:**

> Like what you read? Want to suggest a prompt for a Taako Tuesday fic (which this is not)? Then swing by [my Twitter](http://twitter.com/ArrowAceP) or [my Tumblr](http://thesleepiestsheepy.tumblr.com) and don't be afraid to come off anon. I don't bite ;3c


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